Photo recall: See that - it's a flying pass

Tomorrow morning, more than 46,000 students are due to sit the first major NCEA examination, Level 1 English. About this time in 1990, a canny grandmother was sitting School Cert, as it was known, just to keep her brain ticking over.

That's how Hamilton great-grandmother Cath Dawson remembers the day 21 years ago when the New Zealand Herald ran a photo of the then-67-year-old gleefully holding her School Certificate results in the air.

"Within about a minute of it being in the paper the phone started ringing. I got the first phone call about 6am and it went on all day."

Worried about a repeat performance today, she is making other plans.

"I better go out, the phone will be ringing all day again I expect."

Dawson, now 89, has fond memories of the three years she spent studying high school maths by correspondence, culminating in the B1 grade School Certificate pass.

She also studied French and embroidery.

"I just did it for fun; I always liked figures. My family thought I was crazy but I just wanted to see if I could do it."

And do it she could.

No wonder, Dawson was a bit of an ace in the classroom as a youngster in her native Scotland. Plus, after raising two children she knew how to knuckle down and get on with it.

As a child her results always topped 80 per cent, and her good grades continued before the School Certificate exam.